Prisoner's Base

"Look," I appealed to her, "you had a jolt coming, and what did it matter whether from him or me? Sit down and take it."

"But you couldn't possibly…" It trailed off. She moved and sat. Her remarkable eyes went to Wolfe. "Not that it makes much difference. I suppose I'll have to pay you more, but I was willing to anyhow. I told Mr. Goodwin so."

Wolfe nodded. "And he told you that he was taking the money you gave him tentatively, conditional on my approval. Archie, get it, please, and return it to her."

I had expected that, naturally, and had decided not to make an issue of it. If and when I took a stand I wanted to be on the best ground in sight. So I arose and crossed to the safe and opened it, got the seven new fifties, went to Priscilla, and proffered them. She didn't lift a hand.

"Take it," I advised her. "If you want to balk, pick a better spot." I dropped it on her lap and returned to my chair. As I sat down, Wolfe was speaking.

"Your presence here, Miss Eads, is preposterous. This is neither a rooming house nor an asylum for hysterical women; it is my-"

"I'm not hysterical!"

"Very well, I withdraw it. It is not an asylum for unhysterical women; it is my office and my home. For you to come here and ask to be allowed to stay a week, sleeping and eating in the room directly above mine, without revealing your identity or any of the circumstances impelling you, was grotesque. Mr. Goodwin knew that, and you would have been promptly ejected if he had not chosen to use you and your fantastic request as a means of badgering me-and also, of course, if you had not been young and attractive. Because he did so choose, and you are uncommonly attractive, you were actually taken up to a room and helped to unpack, refreshments were taken up to you, a meal was served you, my whole household was disrupted. Then-"

"I'm sorry." Priscilla's face was good and red, no faint pink flush. "I'm extremely sorry. I'll leave at once." She was rising.

Wolfe showed her a palm. "If you please. There has been a development. We have had a visitor. He left here only half an hour ago. A man named Perry Helmar."

She gasped. "Perry!" She dropped back into the chair, "You told him I'm here!"

"No." Wolfe was curt. "He had been to your apartment and found you gone, and had found the note you left for him-you did leave a note for him?"

"I-yes."